I’m getting a couple of reports that Whatever’s Atom feed is broken. I suspect this may be because people are pointing to a previous version of the Atom feed. The current version of the Atom feed is at:

As of yesterday, I now have more Facebook friends (624) than MySpace friends (620). I’m sure it means something, but I have no idea what. And the fact I have more Twitter followers than friends on either MySpace or Facebook friends? Who knows. It all madness to me. Maybe you can explain it.

* First, for you Francophones out there, the cover to the French language version of The Last Colony:

The tall, tentacly fellow is meant to be General Gau; the other fellow, John Perry. No, I’m not sure why John Perry is wearing a headband. Maybe it’s the fashion. The book is vague on these details. You ask: Does General Gau really look like that? I say: Could be, and in the French version, certainly.

Fun fact: L’Atalante, my French publisher, asked for a couple of reference photos of me for the cover. My assumption was they might use me as a model for John Perry, but after seeing the cover art, I strongly suspect that General Gau here has my eyes. And also my hair. And also my skin tone. So, for all you people who always say you thought I would be taller: here you go.

La derniere colonie will be out on the 26th, which is this upcoming Thursday. Just in case you happen to be in France, and near a bookstore. French Canadians: You’ll have to wait until August. Sorry, man.

* Reviews of Zoe’s Tale are beginning to leak out online from folks who have read the ARCs; here’s a really nice one from someone who apparently does a lot of “early reviews” for LibraryThing, and was complimentary about Zoë herself:

Scalzi does an incredible job of capturing the voice of a 17-year-old girl. Her sarcasm and angst were pitch perfect – I can remember feeling the emotions he has Zoe experience. His supporting characters are also vividly drawn – each character feels unique, both humans and aliens. He is able to interject some really beautiful writing in between pages of exciting action, which made me want to savor the reading experience, even as I couldn’t wait to turn the page to see what would happen next.

Neat. We’ll have to see if the reviews from to pro critics are as kind.

Update: Hugo-nominated editor Jonathan Strahan also weighs in on ZT, and says that of my novels, it was the one he liked the best. Shucks.

* By way of a preview for all y’all, I plugged the first chapter of The High Castle, the upcoming novel in the Android’s Dream universe, into Wordle to come up with a word map for the text. Here’s what it looks like:

A larger version of the word map is here. Fans of The Android’s Dream will note that a certain minor character in that book gets some rather large play in the next.